‘My son, no riches remain to us, no house remains to us. If you like, take us to the slave-market, sell us.’
The lad took and sold them. His mother and his father said, ‘Come this way, that we may see you.’ The king bought the mother and father.
With the money for his mother the lad bought himself clothes, and with the money for his father got a horse.
One day, two days the father, the mother looked for the son that comes not; they fell a-weeping. The king’s servants saw them weeping; they went, told it to the king. ‘Those whom you bought weep loudly.’
‘Call them to me.’ The king called them. ‘Why are you weeping.’
‘We had a son; for him it is we weep.’
‘Who are you, then?’ asked the king.
‘We were not thus, my king; we had a son. He sold us, and we were weeping at his not coming to see us.’
Just as they were talking with the king, the lad arrived. The king set-to, wrote a letter, gave it him into his hand. ‘Carry this letter to such and such a place.’ In it the king wrote, ‘The lad bearing this letter, cut his throat the minute you get it.’
The lad put on his new clothes, mounted his horse, put the letter in his bosom, took the road. He rode a long way; he was dying of thirst; and he sees a well. ‘How am I to get water to drink? I will fasten this letter, and lower it into the well, and moisten my mouth a bit.’ He lowered it, drew it up, squeezed it into his mouth.